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FRANCE'S PROPOSED GENOCIDE LAW FUELS TURKEY'S ANGER
By J. Michael Kennedy
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-turkey-france-genocide-20120128,0,5847656.story
Jan 28 2012
Relations between France and Turkey has been strained further since
the French Parliament approved legislation that would make it illegal
to deny the Armenian genocide.
Reporting from Istanbul, Turkey- The object of the game is to see
how hard a hand on the computer screen can slap a cartoon image of
French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It made its debut only hours after
the French Senate passed legislation Monday that would criminalize
denial of the Armenian genocide.
That bill has caused a furor in Turkey, further damaging a relationship
chilled by Sarkozy's staunch opposition to Turkey's long-standing
bid for membership in the European Union. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan declared it racist and a "massacre of free thought."
Turkish officials say they do not expect the issue to affect their
relationship with other European countries. But their willingness to
challenge France in a high-profile spat underscores Turkey's effort
to establish itself as a regional leader. Some see the country as a
model, although still far from perfect, of how Middle Eastern countries
might be able to combine a moderate form of Islam with democracy and
a vibrant economy.
The latest dispute with France began late last year when a deputy
in Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Movement party introduced
legislation calling for a one-year prison sentence and a $59,000
fine for anyone who espoused a belief that there was no genocide of
Armenians under Ottoman rule during and immediately after World War I.
The number of dead is still in dispute, ranging from 300,000 to 1.5
million. Turkey acknowledges that atrocities were committed, but denies
that there was a systematic attempt to destroy the Armenian people.
After the bill was passed by the lower house of the French Parliament
in December, Erdogan recalled Turkey's ambassador from Paris, banned
the landing and docking of French military aircraft and warships in
Turkey and suspended political and economic talks.
Turkish critics accused Sarkozy of using the bill to gain the votes
of an estimated 500,000 French residents of Armenian descent at a
time when he appears to be in trouble in his campaign for reelection
in April.
"That's what it looks like to Turkey," said Hugh Pope, the
Istanbul-based project director with the International Crisis Group
think tank.
Sarkozy has 15 days from the bill's Senate approval to sign it
into law. Turkish officials have launched a diplomatic push for the
legislation to instead be referred to a court to rule on whether it
is constitutional.
Turkey has its own stiff rules that touch on the dispute. Provisions
of the Turkish penal code make it a crime to "insult Turkishness," and
asserting that an Armenian genocide occurred is considered a violation.
But Pope said the atmosphere had loosened in recent years. "I remember
when you couldn't even mention the subject," he said.
Cengiz Aktar, a leading Turkish scholar on the issue, said discussion
of it was widely purged from accounts of the founding of modern Turkey
after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, but that it could no longer
be contained.
"The reality is that there is no more Armenian presence in Anatolia,
where they used to live for the past 3,000 years," he said.
Fatma Muge Gocek, a Turkish-born sociologist who teaches at the
University of Michigan, said it was only a matter of time before the
Turkish government came to grips with its past, good and bad.
"It's in the last 20 years that Turks have been trying to figure out
what happened with their past," she said. "Acknowledgment would mean
rewriting a great deal of their history."
Perhaps one indicator of progress occurred this month when about 20,000
people gathered in Istanbul to remember Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian
newspaper editor killed five years ago by an ultranationalist. Dink
angered nationalists by referring to the killings of Armenians as
genocide.
Aktar said the large turnout was a reflection of changing times.
"Of course it's not a 100% free environment, but it's incomparably
more free that it was 10 years ago," he said.
Kennedy is a special correspondent.
By J. Michael Kennedy
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-turkey-france-genocide-20120128,0,5847656.story
Jan 28 2012
Relations between France and Turkey has been strained further since
the French Parliament approved legislation that would make it illegal
to deny the Armenian genocide.
Reporting from Istanbul, Turkey- The object of the game is to see
how hard a hand on the computer screen can slap a cartoon image of
French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It made its debut only hours after
the French Senate passed legislation Monday that would criminalize
denial of the Armenian genocide.
That bill has caused a furor in Turkey, further damaging a relationship
chilled by Sarkozy's staunch opposition to Turkey's long-standing
bid for membership in the European Union. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan declared it racist and a "massacre of free thought."
Turkish officials say they do not expect the issue to affect their
relationship with other European countries. But their willingness to
challenge France in a high-profile spat underscores Turkey's effort
to establish itself as a regional leader. Some see the country as a
model, although still far from perfect, of how Middle Eastern countries
might be able to combine a moderate form of Islam with democracy and
a vibrant economy.
The latest dispute with France began late last year when a deputy
in Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Movement party introduced
legislation calling for a one-year prison sentence and a $59,000
fine for anyone who espoused a belief that there was no genocide of
Armenians under Ottoman rule during and immediately after World War I.
The number of dead is still in dispute, ranging from 300,000 to 1.5
million. Turkey acknowledges that atrocities were committed, but denies
that there was a systematic attempt to destroy the Armenian people.
After the bill was passed by the lower house of the French Parliament
in December, Erdogan recalled Turkey's ambassador from Paris, banned
the landing and docking of French military aircraft and warships in
Turkey and suspended political and economic talks.
Turkish critics accused Sarkozy of using the bill to gain the votes
of an estimated 500,000 French residents of Armenian descent at a
time when he appears to be in trouble in his campaign for reelection
in April.
"That's what it looks like to Turkey," said Hugh Pope, the
Istanbul-based project director with the International Crisis Group
think tank.
Sarkozy has 15 days from the bill's Senate approval to sign it
into law. Turkish officials have launched a diplomatic push for the
legislation to instead be referred to a court to rule on whether it
is constitutional.
Turkey has its own stiff rules that touch on the dispute. Provisions
of the Turkish penal code make it a crime to "insult Turkishness," and
asserting that an Armenian genocide occurred is considered a violation.
But Pope said the atmosphere had loosened in recent years. "I remember
when you couldn't even mention the subject," he said.
Cengiz Aktar, a leading Turkish scholar on the issue, said discussion
of it was widely purged from accounts of the founding of modern Turkey
after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, but that it could no longer
be contained.
"The reality is that there is no more Armenian presence in Anatolia,
where they used to live for the past 3,000 years," he said.
Fatma Muge Gocek, a Turkish-born sociologist who teaches at the
University of Michigan, said it was only a matter of time before the
Turkish government came to grips with its past, good and bad.
"It's in the last 20 years that Turks have been trying to figure out
what happened with their past," she said. "Acknowledgment would mean
rewriting a great deal of their history."
Perhaps one indicator of progress occurred this month when about 20,000
people gathered in Istanbul to remember Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian
newspaper editor killed five years ago by an ultranationalist. Dink
angered nationalists by referring to the killings of Armenians as
genocide.
Aktar said the large turnout was a reflection of changing times.
"Of course it's not a 100% free environment, but it's incomparably
more free that it was 10 years ago," he said.
Kennedy is a special correspondent.